About 20 petitioners came together in front of ASU West's Fletcher Library Wednesday to lobby on behalf of two campaigns.
Parents, teachers and students collected signatures at ASU West to gain support for their efforts to keep teachers who are being laid off and to save the preschool.
The Child Development Center, which serves as the preschool for children on campus, is closing at the end of the semester after providing preliminary education to children for 17 years.
Glendale resident Liz Sharlot was sporting a gold Sun Devil shirt bearing the phrase, "Hey ASU! — It's Time To Make A New Plan!!" hoping to convince administration to cancel plans to close down the early education center Sharlot's daughter attends.
Sharlot said close to 1,200 petitions have been signed, both online and on paper, asking for a new plan for the program since the closing was announced.
"They gave us four months and one week to find a new facility," Sharlot said.
Parents have spoken to members of administration and the Arizona Board of Regents — the governing body of ASU, NAU and UA — since the announcement, providing them alternative options to relocate the center or create a new plan for the development center, but every idea has been rejected, Sharlot said.
"The petition was initially designed to keep [the center]," Sharlot said. "But if we have to compromise to get an extra year then we will do that. They won't even support that."
Though the teachers at the Child Development Center will be out of jobs at the end of the semester, seven part-time teachers will also no longer be leading a class on campus next fall, said mathematical science and applied composition teachers Bob Senzer and Jerry Roffeld.
"[The administration is] laying off good and experienced people," Senzer said, who has served as a part-time teacher for three years. "[The teachers] were all doing an excellent job and received good reviews from the students [only] to be laid off."
Senzer said 15 part-time teachers at the Tempe campus were also laid off in order to hire three full-time replacements to teach at ASU West.
ASU West spokesman Steven Des Georges said he was surprised to see parents and teachers on campus getting people to sign petitions for the center because he doesn't know what they will do with them.
"It's very unfortunate," Des Georges said. "You never want to close down a development center — we are proud of the work that's been done there — but the reality is that it's closing. It's not a feasible entity on this campus anymore."
Des Georges said the center is a financial liability and the decision to close the center is not going to be reversed.
Child Development Center teacher and 1997 ASU West alumna Katharine Anthony said ASU is very hypocritical in how they promote higher education but not preliminary education.
"I don't believe [the administration] values it," Anthony said. "They value money over the value of the education of young children."
Anthony said he believes that Michael Crow states that ASU is supposed to be "one university," but there are four different opportunities for young children on the Tempe campus, while none will exist on ASU West come next fall.
"Arizona kids lose again," he added.
Reach the reporter at: ryan.calhoun@asu.edu.
